Monday, March 2, 2009

A model for violence prevention?

Friday, new Chicago schools CEO, Ron Huberman, had his assistant, Drew Beres, write a note to Clemente High School Principal Leonard Kenebrew. The letter informed Kenebrew that Huberman will be bringing a couple of research guys over to the school tomorrow from the Police Executive Research Forum. It seems that Huberman wants to use Clemente as his model of school violence prevention in a study that will, “help us bring best practices to the entire CPS system.”

Readers might recall that the recent explosion of violence inside the massive, 7-story complex that is Clemente, was directlyconnected to Daley/Duncan’s Renaissance 2010 closure of Austin High School and the shipping of hundreds of kids from the west side over to Clemente and Wells.

Only Herculean efforts by Kenebrew and his great corps of teachers, plus Clemente’s small-schools plan, kept the situation from deteriorating further into all-out war. Ren10 school closing also caused a spike in school violence across the city, at schools like CVS and Gage Park. Duncan then fired Gage Park principal, Marty McGreal when he protested and refused to allow his school population to swell even larger in the wake of the Ren10 violence.

The real “best practice” might be for Huberman to dump Renaissance 2010 altogether, before more schools are closed and more kids scattered. Not likely though.

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